This is a summary of our proposal presentation we made to fellow members on our course along with two lecturers on 28th October 2008 2:00PM – 5:00PM.

Our team consists of three members and we are creating a 3-4 minute 3D animation. The animation is a love comedy and the final product will be submitted in .AVI format.

Ideas

Ideas for our 3D animation included:

An advert for a new model of car.

An animation against racism.

A love story with complications.

A story of bullying in the animal kingdom.

Creating a trailer for a full feature film.

An animation of an archaelogist/explorer in the jungle.

Research

From researching our ideas the two that we pursued with was the possibility of progressing with, was the advert for a new model of car and also the love story with complications.

Idea 1

The idea for our advert for a new model of car was that the backdrop would be the Millau Viaduct in southern France. (For more information click this link.)

The Millau Viaduct at the time of writing is the highest vehicular bridge in world. It has an amazing backdrop of the valley landscape around it which would be a challenge to model. The bridge itself is an amazing architectural feat and again has some great modelling potential. The viaduct can be seen in the photograph below.

We would have the car driving across the bridge. As the basic components of the car drives across the bridge we would gradually have all the parts of the car flying in and forming the full cars appearance. At the start of the animation only part of the bridge would be constructed. As the car is gradually built as it progresses across the bridge the bridge also gradually constructs itself in front of the car until the whole bridge is constructed. By this time the whole of the car would also have been constructed and be in full viewing order.

Below are two videos showing an idea of cars gradually coming together as each part is added together.

The first video is for the Renault Sport Megane advert. It symbolizes that only the best components make into their sport model.

The second video is for the Audi R8 supercar and it symbolizes how much effort, care and workmanship is put into creating each individual R8 car.

Both these videos give and idea of the kind of effect we were looking to achieve as our modelled car drove across the bridge.

Idea 2

The idea for our love story was a guy that every time he tries to ask the girl out that he loves something goes wrong. Common scenarios that we could potentially adapt and use include:

Giving chocolates.

Giving flowers.

Giving a poem that he had written for her.

Going to the cinema.

Going to a restaurant.

Research that we did for this was by getting inspiration from known good films that have a similar kind of plot.

These were:

Romeo & Juliet (N/A)

Just Friends (2005)

Forest Gump (1994)

50 First Dates (2004)

10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

What Women Want (2000)

Wall-E (2008)

Chosen Idea

The idea we decided on as a team to take further was the love story with complications.

Upon choosing this we decided to draw up our character designs. We would need three main characters and a final additional character that features in the very last scene.

Our main character called Ernest is the guy who is in love with the girl called Sophie. The complication is the additional male called John who is causing problems for Ernest as he is also in love with Sophie and wants to go out on a date with her.

The final character who features briefly at the end is called Emma and helps Ernest out in coming to terms with reality.

The design of ‘Ernest’

The design of ‘Sophie’

The Design of ‘John’

Project Plan

Below is our intial GANTT chart. It requires modification as when we first created it the ‘rigging’ stage got omitted from our schedule. A new GANTT chart will be uploaded as part of our Week 14 presentation to discuss progress of our project.

We intend to move forwards on our project by keeping to the time in our GANTT chart and by working as a team to achieve the goals that we have set. We intend to have regular team meetings to keep up to date with progress and to keep the project running smoothly.

The main programs we plan on using to create and complete our 3D animation are:

Autodesk Maya 2008 – For creating the physical 3D animation.

Adobe Photoshop CS4 – To create our textured UV Maps.

Adobe Audition – To record and edit the required audio files to integrate into our animation.

Adobe After Effects CS4 – To amalgamate our final 3D animation with video, audio and the finishing touches such as the intro screen and credits screens.